Incredible Images Captured From Space

Scott Kelly Captures Striking View of Mountains

Scott Kelly posted this image to twitter, July 30, 2015, with the caption: "High sun angles we're at on @Space_Station make for striking images of the mountains of #SouthAmerica. #YearInSpace"

@StationCDRKelly/Twitter

Scott Kelly Captures Striking View of Mountains

Scott Kelly posted this image to twitter, July 30, 2015, with the caption: "High sun angles we're at on @Space_Station make for striking images of the mountains of #SouthAmerica. #YearInSpace"

@StationCDRKelly/Twitter

Earth From A Million Miles Away

A NASA camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite has returned its first view of the entire sunlit side of Earth from one million miles away. The image was generated by combining three separate images to create a photographic-quality image. The image was taken July 6, 2015, showing North and Central America.

NASA

Stars and Stripes in Space

Celebrating Flag Day, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly took this photograph in the cupola of the International Space Station. Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) wrote, "Stars and stripes from @Space_Station. Happy #NationalFlagDay! #YearInSpace," June 14, 2015.

NASA

Get the Closest Look Yet of Ceres' Cratered Surface

The brightest spots on dwarf planet Ceres are seen in this image taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on June 6, 2015. This is among the first snapshots from Dawn's second mapping orbit, which is 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) in altitude. The resolution is 1,400 feet (410 meters) per pixel. Scientists are still puzzled by the nature of these spots, and are considering explanations that include salt and ice.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Medusa Nebula Glows in Space

ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile has captured the most detailed image ever taken of the Medusa Nebula. As the star at the heart of this nebula made its final transition into retirement, it shed its outer layers into space, forming this colorful cloud. The image foreshadows the final fate of the Sun, which will eventually also become an object of this kind.

ESO

Sunset Thunderstorms As Seen From Space

Astronaut Terry W. Virts posted this photo to Twitter, May 13, 2015, with the text, "This amazing sunset view shows just how high thunderstorms can go. This is truly #EarthArt."

@AstroTerry/Twitter

Astronaut Shows Surprising View of Earth

Astronaut Scott Kelly shared this image of Earth from space to his Twitter account, April 27, 2015, captioned: "Sometimes #Earth looks like another planet from @Space_Station. #YearInSpace"

@StationCDRKelly/Twitter

Astronauts' Space Outpost Glows in the Dark

On March 18, 2015, this image was posted to Italian astronaut Sam Cristoforetti's Twitter account with the text, "Captivating view... Progress cargo spaceship ablaze in a ghostly green and red glow. #OurOutpostInSpace."

@AstroSamantha/Twitter

Shades of Red at Mars’ South Pole

The southern cap of Mars hosts a swirl of colors in this image released by ESA on Feb. 9, 2015. The bright white area is composed of frozen water and carbon dioxide. The image was originally captured on Dec. 17, 2012, in infrared, green and blue light, using the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA's Mars Express spacecraft.

Bill Dunford/FU Berlin/DLR/ESA

Sweeping View of Little Sombrero Galaxy

The Hubble Space Telescope captured NGC 7814, a galaxy known as the "Little Sombrero." NGC 7814 has a bright central bulge and a bright halo of glowing gas extending outwards into space. The dusty spiral arms appear as dark streaks. Nearly all of the objects seen in this image are galaxies as well.

Hubble and NASA/ESA

Amazing Photo of Mysterious 'God's Hand' Space Globule

Like the gaping mouth of a gigantic celestial creature, the cometary globule CG4 glows menacingly in this image from ESO's Very Large Telescope, Jan. 30, 2015. Although it looks huge and bright in this image it is actually a faint nebula and not easy to observe. The exact nature of CG4 remains a mystery.

ESO

NASA Explores ‘International Year of Light’

The Chandra X-ray Center released a set of images in honor of the United Nations’ designation of 2015 as the International Year of Light. An expanding shell of debris called SNR 0519-69.0 is left behind after a massive star exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. Multimillion degree gas is seen in blue in X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The outer edge of the explosion (red) and stars in the field of view are seen in visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope.

SAO/CXC/NASA

Sun Releases First Major Solar Flare of 2015

NASA released this image of what they call the first notable solar flare of 2015, photographed by the Solar Dynamics Observatory on Jan. 12, 2015. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

SDO/NASA

Hubble Captures Brilliant New "Pillars of Creation"

NASA released a new photo of the "Pillars of Creation" from the Hubble Telescope, Jan. 6, 2015.

NASA

Europa’s Icy Surface Glows in New Color View

A color view of the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, composed from images taken by NASA's Galileo Orbiter between 1995 and 1998. Though the images were taken years ago, this view is the first view of Europa as it would appear to the human eye; an earlier composite version, released in 2001, was a mosaic view made from images taken through multicolored filters.

JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute/NASA

Massive galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora's Cluster, takes on a ghostly look where total starlight has been artificially colored blue in this Hubble view.

NASA/ESA/IAC/HFF

Active regions on the sun combined to look something like a jack-o-lantern's face on Oct. 8, 2014. The active regions appear brighter because those are areas that emit more light and energy are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona. This image blends together two sets of wavelengths, typically colorized in gold and yellow, to create a particularly Halloween-like appearance.

NASA/Goddard/SDO

Hubble Snaps Stunning Photo of Neighboring Star Cluster

NASA has released an image taken by the Hubble space telescope of a cluster of stars known as NGC-121, in one of our neighboring galaxies.

ESA/Hubble/NASA

Saturn's largest and second largest moons, Titan and Rhea, appear to be stacked on top of each other in this true-color scene from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The north polar hood can be seen on Titan, 3,200 miles across, appearing as a detached layer at the top of the moon on the top right.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

A composite image, built from 141 photos taken by the spacecraft Cassini in July and released Nov. 12, 2013, shows the results of a four-hour flyby of the planet Saturn. Earth and its moon are visible as a small blip in the natural-color image, just outside the glow of the outermost ring on the lower righthand side of the planet; they are 1.4 billion kilometers away.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

Images captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory show a magnetic filament of solar material erupting on the sun in a spectacular fashion, Sept. 29-30, 2013. The 200,000 mile long filament ripped through the sun's atmosphere, the corona, leaving behind what looks like a canyon of fire. The glowing canyon traces the channel where magnetic fields held the filament aloft before the explosion.

NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory

In this composite image, visible-light observations by NASA?s Hubble Space Telescope are combined with infrared data from the ground-based Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona to assemble a dramatic view of the well-known Ring Nebula.

NASA

New data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), one of the Milky Way's closest galactic neighbors, reveals the first discovery of X-ray emissions from young stars similar to our sun outside of our galaxy. This composite of X-ray, optical and infrared images shows the stars in a region known as "The Wing" of the SMC.

The same parts of the sun can look very different, depending on the lens you use.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Spiral Galaxy With A Secret

Messier 106, a galaxy 20 million light-years away, has been shot many times by the Hubble Space Telescope. Amateur astronomer Robert Gendler combined Hubble images with his own for a computer-generated version with new details.

This is the Andromeda galaxy, one of the most famous objects in the northern sky.

ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/NHSC

Hubble Views a Dwarf Galaxy

This a dwarf galaxy called NGC 5477, near the Pinwheel Galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major (the Great Bear) in the northern sky. The Hubble Space Telescope shot this image as part of a project to measure the distance to galaxies less than 30 million light-years from Earth.

ESA/Hubble|NASA

Largest-Known Spiral Galaxy

This is NGC 6872, the largest known spiral galaxy ever seen in the sky. It is 522,000 light-years across from one end to the other, which makes it about 5 times the size of our Milky Way. Images were combined from three telescopes for this picture.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/ESO/JPL-Caltech/DSS

Solar flare 20 times the size of Earth

A solar eruption rising from the surface of the sun, as seen by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in Earth orbit. This flare extends about 160,000 miles out into space. Earth is about 7,900 miles in diameter, so this relatively minor eruption is about 20 times as long as our planet is wide.

NASA/SDO

Mars Meteorite

Why go to Mars when pieces of it have been found on Earth? This meteorite, designated NWA 7034, crashed in the Sahara Desert in 2011. An examination of the rock determined it is 2.1 billion years old and is surprisingly rich in water. Tiny air bubbles in the rock have the same composition as air measured by NASA Mars probes.

Carl Agee/University of New Mexico/AP Photo

Galaxy Packed With Black Holes

Looking a little like a Christmas bauble, this is the planet Saturn as seen from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The ship was steered through Saturn's shadow for this picture. The planet's night side appears to glow green because of sunlight filtered through Saturn's murky atmosphere.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Best Black Hole Recipe

This is a composite image of NGC 922, a ring galaxy about 157 million light-years from Earth. The reddest areas are probably black holes, formed by collapsing stars. This picture was created with images combined from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray telescope, both in Earth orbit.

NASA/STSCI/Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Swirls of Ice Seen From Space

A total solar eclipse as seen from Palm Cove, Australia, Nov. 14, 2012. Thousands of eclipse-watchers gathered in northern Australia to enjoy the solar eclipse, the first in Australia in a decade.

Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images

Deepest-Ever View of Universe

Swirls of sea ice in the fjords of Greenland, seen from NASA's Aqua satellite in orbit.

NASA/GSFC

Planetary Nebuae

The Cat's Eye planetary nebula -- a dying star, with clouds of gas and debris around it. Astronomers have studied them in new detail, combining images from NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray telescope and the Hubble space telescope.

X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIT/J.Kastner et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI

Strange Cloud in Milky Way

Astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of our deepest-ever view of the universe. Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining ten years of Hubble Space Telescope observations. Some of the galaxies in it are 13.2 billion years old. The universe itself formed 13.7 billion years ago.

NASA/ESA/G. Illingworth/D. Magee/P. Oesch/R. Bouwens/HUDF09 Team

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the "butterfly wing"- shaped nebula, NGC 2346. The nebula is about 2,000 light-years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Monoceros.

NASA/STScl

PIgtail Cloud

Japanese astronomers have discovered this unusual spiral cloud near the center of the Milky Way galaxy, about 30,000 light years away. They called it a "pigtail" molecular cloud because of its shape, which they say was probably determined by magnetic forces.

Keio University, Nobeyama Radio Observatory

Saturn and moon Titan seen from Cassini Probe

Saturn, with its largest moon, Titan, seen in this image from NASA's Cassini probe in orbit around the ringed planet. Since Cassini arrived in 2004, the seasons have changed on Saturn, which takes 30 Earth years to circle the sun. The southern hemisphere, approaching winter, has taken on a bluish hue.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

Phoenix Cluster Sets Record Pace at Forming Stars

Astronomers have found one of the largest objects in the universe, a galaxy cluster where stars are forming more rapidly than anywhere else yet observed. It is called the Phoenix cluster, 5.7 billion light years away in the southern sky. It is seen in this artist's conception.

M. Weiss/CXC/NASA

Flame Nebula

The Flame nebula, seen in infrared light by NASA's WISE spacecraft. This nebula is part of a giant star-forming complex near the belt of Orion, the constellation in the winter sky as seen from the Northern Hemisphere. The new stars are surrounded by dust and gas.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Black Hole Shreds Star

Our Milky Way galaxy is doomed. Scientists using the Hubble telescope have determined it will be destroyed -- 4 billion years from now, when it collides with the Andromeda galaxy. This artist's conception shows how the sky might look as the galaxies are drawn together by each other's gravity.

Z. Levay, R. van der Marel, and A. Mellinger/ESA/NASA

Meteor Shower Lights Up Skies

This computer-simulated image shows gas from a star falling into a black hole. Astronomers, reporting in the journal Nature, say they observed a flare in ultraviolet and optical light, telling them there was a black hole tearing a star apart.

A Star Is Born

A Lyrid meteor shoots across the night sky April 22, 2012. Debris from the comet Thatcher created this streak in the upper atmosphere Sunday, witnessed by people in California and northern Nevada.

Courtesy Marian Murdoch

A Star Is Born

The Lyrid meteor shower occurs around April 22 every year, as the Earth passes through the path of an old comet. Astronomers said the chances of seeing meteors would be good this year because a new moon meant the skies would be darker than usual.

Courtesy Marian Murdoch

Giant Solar Flare

This is a star nursery called 30 Doradus. It is 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small, satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, visible only from the Southern Hemisphere. This image was combined from several taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in October 2011.

NASA/ESA/STSci

Amazing Hi-Def Coronal Mass Ejection

A beautiful prominence seen shooting from the face of the sun by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The flare is composed of hot, electrically-charged gases. This particular one was not coming in the direction of Earth, so satellites were safe and there were not large new auroras near the poles.

NASA/GSFC/SDO

Space pictures: photos from the final frontier

This picture of Earth, taken on March 7, 2012, was reported by astronaut Don Pettit to be the one millionth shot from the International Space Station since station assembly began in 1998. Two Russian supply ships are in the foreground. The green band over Earth is an aurora.

NASA

Northern Lights Follow Solar Storm

The southern lights between Australia and Antarctica, seen from the International Space Station by Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers.

NASA

New Auroras Seen From Space Station

Stars appear as circular streaks in this time-lapse photo from the International Space Station by astronaut Don Pettit. The ISS turns to keep one side oriented toward Earth.

NASA

Major Solar Flare Erupts

During a major solar storm, an aurora shimmers over snow-covered mountains in Faskrudsfjordur, Iceland, March 8, 2012.

Courtesy Jónína Óskarsdóttir/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Major Solar Flare Erupts

An X5 solar flare, the strongest observed in 2012, seen through an ultraviolet filter by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory March 7, 2012.

NASA

Steamy Planet Orbits Star

The brightest star in the inset is proof there is a black hole in the Andromeda galaxy. A disc of gas and dust heats up and emits X-rays as the gravity of the black hole pulls it toward its doom.

Landessternwarte Tautenburg, XMM-Newton, MPE

Stellar Nursery in Stunning Detail

The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a new class of planet, a water world enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. It is called GJ 1214b, and as seen in this artist's conception, it orbits a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth. Today it is hot and shrouded in vapor, but scientists say it may once have had liquid water.

NASA/ESA/David Aguilar : Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

The Ancient Oceans of Mars

Europe's Very Large Telescope in Chile has delivered the most detailed image yet of the Carina Nebula stellar nursery, found in the southern Milky Way. The nebula is a spectacular celestial landscape of gas, dust and young stars.

Carina Nebula Stellar Nursery

Former Ocean on Mars

Europe's Mars Express probe, orbiting the red planet, has sent back radar data reaffirming scientists' belief that the northern hemisphere of Mars once had vast oceans. The radar detected sediments reminiscent of an ocean floor inside previously identified, ancient shorelines on Mars.

C. Carreau/ESA

Best Map Yet of Universe

This new image of the Earth is a composite shot by NASA's newest Earth-observing satellite, called Suomi NPP. Mexico is in the center of the frame, with Baja California to the left and Florida to the right.

NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

A Galaxy Full of Planets

This is a map of a quarter of the known universe, the most detailed yet done. Each green dot is a galaxy. It was done by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III.

David Kirkby/University of California at Irvine/SDSS

A Galaxy Full of Planets

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has detected three planets -- all of them smaller than Earth -- orbiting a red dwarf star, 130 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. This is an artist's conception of the KOI-961 system. A separate study suggests the galaxy has at least 100 billion planets, many of which could be habitable.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

A Galaxy Full of Planets

Remember Tattooine, Luke Skywalker's fanciful home planet from "Star Wars" with its two suns? The NASA Kepler probe has found two new solar systems that have double stars and at least one planet each. One is seen in this artist's conception. Many physicists had wondered if a planet could survive being flung around by the gravity of double stars.

Mark A. Garlick

A Galaxy Full of Planets

The Hubble Space Telescope found proof of a black hole at the center of the Andromeda galaxy, the only large galaxy visible to the naked eye in the northern sky. The black hole itself is invisible, but the inset shows a ring of reddish stars orbiting it.

T. Lauer/National Optical Astronomy Observatory/NASA/ESA

Space Station Over the Moon

A new infrared picture of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy was made by combining images from Europe's orbiting Herschel Space Observatory and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the galaxies closest to our own Milky Way, is in the southern sky.

ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI

Space Station Flying by the Moon

The International Space Station, orbiting just 240 miles overhead, appears to hover over the moon, which orbits Earth about 240,000 miles away. A NASA photographer planted herself in just the right spot to shoot the two together.

Lauren Harnett/NASA

Holiday 'Wreath' Nebula

A holiday "wreath" in space, captured by NASA's WISE space telescope. It's actually a star-forming nebula named Barnard 3. The red and green areas are interstellar gas of different chemical composition.

NASA

Saturn's Rings and Moons Seen from Cassini

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, with its thick atmosphere. Dione, the third-largest moon, peeks out from behind it to the right in this view of the two from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Saturn itself, with its rings, looms in the background.

NASA

A Star is Born

This bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, looks like a celestial snow angel. It is nearly 2,000 light-years from us. A massive, young star, IRS 4 is in the middle of the formation. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from it.

NASA/ESA/the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

A Star is Born

The VLT Survey Telescope in Chile has shot a new image of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 253. It is more than 11 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Sculptor. It is one of the brightest galaxies in the sky.

ESO/INAF-VST/A. Grado/L. Limatola/INAF-Capodimonte Observatory

A Star is Born

Observations made with the APEX telescope in Chile reveal the cold dusty clouds from which stars form in the Carina Nebula. This is a site of violent star formation, which plays host to some of the highest-mass stars in our galaxy.

ESO

Magnificent Sunspot

One of the largest sunspot clusters in years has appeared. The larger black areas are more than 8,000 miles across, larger than Earth. The cluster is called AR1339, and it was imaged by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on Nov. 3, 2011.

NASA

Earth Glows Bright Green

This is the "Pacman" nebula in the constellation of Cassiopeia, shot in infrared light by NASA's orbiting WISE telescope. It is a giant cloud of dust and gas, about 9,200 light-years away.

JPL-Caltech/UCLA/NASA

Galaxies Collide in Southern Sky

Astronaut Mike Fossum took this picture of an aurora from the International Space Station. The aurora, near one of Earth's poles, appears green in this night exposure. Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft, docked to the station, are in the foreground.

NASA

Aurora Seen From Space Station

This spectacular view of the aurora was taken from the International Space Station as it crossed over the southern Indian Ocean on September 17, 2011. While auroras are often seen near the poles, this aurora appeared closer to the equator because of a geomagnetic storm from the sun that erupted on September 14, 2011.

NASA

Aurora Seen From Space

The Antenna Galaxies, two colliding galaxies in the southern sky, seen in several wavelengths by ALMA, a giant new array of radio telescopes built by the European Southern Observatory in northern Chile.

Courtesy ESO/ALMA

Shooting a Laser Into the Heavens

Photographer Yuri Beletsky says he shot this amazing image in 2010 at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, part of the European Southern Observatory. The bright streak is a laser beam, used to help the telescope compensate for the distorting effects of the atmosphere. Above is an image of the Milky Way.

Yuri Beletsky/ESO

Billionaire's Name Visible From Space

This looks very much like a galaxy, but it is actually a computer model, the result of nine months of work at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The university calls it a first. Previous attempts to simulate a galaxy's shape had failed, and led scientists to question the prevailing cosmological model of the universe.

Courtesy of J. Guedes and P. Madau

A Storm on Saturn, as Big as Earth

A billionaire from the United Arab Emirates, Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, hired a crew to dig his name in the sand near Abu Dhabi, and the result was visible from space. The name "Hamad," in this image from Google Earth, is two miles long.

Google

Space Shuttle Atlantis and International Space Station Silhouetted Against Sun

The International Space Station, seen from the ground by a French photographer as it passed over the face of the sun.

Thierry Legault

Giant Storm on Saturn

A storm almost as large as Earth rages in the clouds of the planet Saturn. This image was taken by NASA's Cassini space probe, which went into orbit around Saturn in 2004 and has explored the strange ringed world and its many moons. The storm is about 6,000 miles wide, and its tail of clouds nearly circle the planet.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

Coronal Mass Ejection Photographed

The sun released a spectacular coronal mass ejection -- a mass of electrically-charged gases -- on June 7, 2011. The cloud of particles mushroomed out into space and fell back into the sun, covering almost half its surface. Such bursts often intensify auroras on earth as charged particles bombard the planet's magnetic field.

NASA/SDO

International Space Station and Shuttle Endeavour

The International Space Station, docked to the space shuttle Endeavour on May 25, 2011. This picture was taken from a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that had just undocked from the station. It was the first time since space shuttles began delivering station components in 1998 that the two large ships were shown together. Endeavour's tail is visible near the left end of the complex.

Paolo Nespoli/NASA

Dancing Galaxies in Stunning Hubble Picture

In honor of the 21st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's launch into space, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore released this photo of a "rose" of galaxies. The pair of interacting spiral galaxies is called Arp 273. The larger galaxy is distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational pull of the galaxy below it. Hubble was deployed April 24, 1990.

Nasa

NASA Spacecraft Shoots a Star Nursery

This March 28, 2011 image provided by NASA shows composited images from Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical and X-ray telescopes of a gamma-ray explosion designated GRB 110328A. Scientists say this blast is unusual because the effects are long-lasting. More than a week later, they continue to see high-energy radiation spiking and fading at the source. Flaring from such an event usually lasts a couple of hours.

Stefan Immler/NASA

The Art of Making Stars

This is not an abstract painting. It is a nursery for new stars. It is called Rho Ophiuchi, and it is one of the closest star-forming complexes to Earth, 460 light-years away. It is in the constellation Ophiuchus, found high in the sky on summer nights in the northern hemisphere. This infrared image was shot by NASA?s WISE spacecraft, short for Wide-field Infrared Explorer.

NASA/JPL

An Extended Stellar Family

This swirling landscape of stars is known as the North American nebula. In visible light, the region resembles North America, but in this new infrared view from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the continent disappears.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Orion Nebula: Still Full of Surprises

This ethereal-looking image of the Orion Nebula was captured using the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. This nebula is much more than just a pretty face, offering astronomers a close-up view of a massive star-forming region to help advance our understanding of stellar birth and evolution. The data used for this image were selected by Igor Chekalin (Russia), who participated in ESO's Hidden Treasures 2010 astrophotography competition. Igor's composition of the Orion Nebula was the seventh highest ranked entry in the competition, although another of Igor's images was the eventual overall winner.

Courtesy European Southern Observatory

Hubble and Chandra spot a celestial bauble

This delicate shell, photographed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, appears to float serenely in the depths of space, but this apparent calm hides an inner turmoil. The gaseous envelope formed as the expanding blast wave and ejected material from a supernova tore through the nearby interstellar medium.

NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope

The Glow of a Dying Star

A dying star known as NGC 1514. It was shot in infrared light by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE satellite. The object is actually a pair of stars -- one, a dying giant somewhat heavier and hotter than our sun, the other an even larger star that has now contracted into a dense body called a white dwarf. As the giant star ages, it sheds some its outer layers of material to form a large bubble (orange) around the two stars.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/Digitized Sky Survey/STScI

A Star Nursery Hidden by Cosmic Dust

NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray telescope has found what may be the youngest black hole ever spotted. It is only 30 years old. It is the remnant of a supernova called SN 1979C, which astronomers saw exploding in 1979. Like all black holes, its gravity is so powerful that it even pulls in light waves, making it invisible, but astrophysicists say it is 50 million light-years away, in a galaxy called M100.

A Star Nursery Hidden by Cosmic Dust

This image was captured by NASA's EPOXI mission between Nov. 3 and 4, 2010, during the spacecraft's flyby of comet Hartley 2. It was captured using the spacecraft's Medium-Resolution Instrument.

Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

A Frozen Galaxy Where Stars Are Born

A new image from the European Southern Observatory?s VISTA survey telescope in Chile reveals glowing tendrils of gas, dark clouds and young stars in the constellation of Monoceros the Unicorn, just left of Orion in the winter sky. This star-forming region, known as Monoceros R2, is embedded in a huge dark cloud. The region is almost completely obscured by interstellar dust when viewed in visible light, but is spectacular in the infrared, as seen here.

Courtesy European Southern Observatory

Stunning Spiral Galaxy Found in Coma Cluster

A section of the Carina Nebula, imaged by the Hubble Telescope. Each of the dark "pillars" of cold hydrogen and dust is about one light-year long, or about six trillion miles. Physicists say these are regions where new stars are born. The nebula is approximately 7,500 light-years from Earth, visible from the southern hemisphere.

NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Project (STScI/AURA)

Cosmic Chaos: When Galaxies Collide

This long-exposure Hubble Space Telescope image shows a spiral galaxy located in the Coma Cluster of galaxies, 320 million light-years away from Earth. Home to nearly 1,000 galaxies, the Coma Cluster is one of the densest collections of galaxies in the nearby universe, according to NASA.

NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Photos From the Final Frontier

This new NASA image released shows the Antennae galaxies, which are located about 62 million light-years from Earth and started colliding more than 100 million years ago. The galaxies are named for their long antennalike "arms. This composite includes images from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Courtesy NASA, ESA, SAO, CXC, JPL-Caltech, and STScI

All-Sky Image Shows 'Oldest Light' in the Universe

On July 11, 2010, the moon passed directly in front of the sun, causing a total solar eclipse in the South Pacific. The eclipse is shown (black and white) in a photo from the Williams College Expedition to Easter Island. Around it, in red, is an image of the sun's outer corona from the SOHO spacecraft. SOHO uses a disk to blot out the sun so that the faint outer corona can be studied. An image of the sun, taken at about the same time by the orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory, was added in the middle.

NASA/ESA/Williams College Eclipse Expedition

Photos From the Final Frontier

After a one-year survey, the European Space Agency's Planck satellite has released its first image of the entire sky. The main disc of light across the center is the Milky Way galaxy. The backdrop at the top and bottom of the image is the "cosmic microwave background radiation," which is the oldest light in the universe. The data generated by Planck will help scientists understand how the universe developed and how it works now.

ESA

Stellar Shrapnel: Aftermath of a Supernova Explosion

Captured by the wide field imager at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, this image shows a region around the star R Coronae Australis. The star is in the center of a star-forming region and is surrounded by a blue nebula in a giant dust cloud. The nebula is about 420 light-years away from Earth.

Courtesy ESO

Stellar Shrapnel: Aftermath of a Supernova Explosion

This photo shows the surface of Saturn's moone Dione against Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

NASA

Stellar Shrapnel

A new observation from NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray telescope reveals evidence of a bullet-shaped object that was blown out of debris field left by an exploded star. This composite image shows N49, the aftermath of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud in the southern hemisphere.

Hubble Catches Star Eating a Planet

For the first time, astronomers say they've detected a superstorm in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, a planet about 60 percent the mass of Jupiter, orbiting a star about 150 light-years from Earth.
In the journal Nature, the team of astronomers from the U.S. and the Netherlands wrote that in the atmosphere of the planet HD209458b, a super wind is blowing at a speed of about 3,100 to 6,200 mph.
"HD209458b is definitely not a place for the faint-hearted ‚" said Ignas Snellen, who led the team of astronomers.

L. Calçada/ESO

How Did Jupiter Lose a Stripe?

The Hubble space telescope has observed a planet being swallowed by its parent star. This artist's concept shows the exoplanet WASP-12b, the hottest known planet in the Milky Way galaxy. According to NASA, the planet is so close to its sun-like parent star that tidal forces have stretched the planet into an egg shape and it's so hot that it has expanded to the point where its outer atmosphere "spills into the star." Scientists expect the star to consume the planet in 10 million years. Hubble can't get a clear photograph the planet because it's too far away, but this artist's rendering is partly based on observations made by the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, a new instrument that was added to Hubble last year.

NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Jupiter Loses a Stripe

One of Jupiter's two main cloud belts has completely disappeared, to the surprise of scientists who study the solar system's largest planet.
"This is a big event," says planetary scientist Glenn Orton of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. "We're monitoring the situation closely and do not yet fully understand what's going on."
The brown ring of clouds, known as the South Equatorial Belt (SEB), is twice as wide as Earth and more than twenty times as long. Orton thinks the belt may not have disappeared, but could instead be hidden behind other clouds. Scientists say the belt has faded out before.

NASA

Hubble Captures Runaway Star

A runaway star was seen rushing away from this stellar nursery, traveling more than 248,000 mph in this Hubble telescope image. At that speed, you could get to the moon and back in two hours.

spacetelescope.org

NASA

To celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope's 20th Birthday, NASA released this new image. "Pillar & Jets" shows a small portion of one of the largest known star-birth areas of the galaxy, the Carina Nebula. The Hubble telescope was launched April 24, 1990 aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)

'Cosmic Rose' Bursts With New Stars

Rainbows in space? Not exactly. The colors in this Hubble telescope image show that Einstein was right, and that a star or galaxy with strong gravity slightly bends the space around it. Different colors correspond to different distances from the earth. Some of the warping here was probably caused by mysterious "dark matter," which probably makes up much of the universe.